Tag Archives: Peter Williams

Poetry Events in March – Permission to Speak (4.3.15)

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I started to catch up with Blog posts last week and then wordpress ate my draft and I couldn’t find it anywhere and then ran out of time to rewrite. Now I have finished a busy weekend of poeting and have time to start afresh (in a word doc.) just incase!

I am backtracking to the beginning of the month. My first event was ‘Permission to Speak’ with Rob Francis at the Scary Canary in Stourbridge. Caution Poet & Dave Halama were the featured artist this month, great sets from them both. Caution has a book out, ‘Fragile’.

caution poet book Fragile

The words from Rob Francis himself;

Our next spoken word event hosted by the great Robert Francis includes words from the great ‘Caution Poet’ and musical delights from Dave Halama. P2S dave halama

© 2015 Peter Williams

P2S caution and book © 2015 Peter Williams

Caution Poet With a new poetry collection titled ‘Fragile’ available to purchase on the night this writers work reflects life “from his childhood recollections of The Big Brum Estate, to the sobering reality of Tinted Windows To The Soul, Caution Poet slices through life with dark pop poetry precision. As we throw Caution to the wind, accepted reality becomes fragile perception. No-one ever said it was going to be easy…”

MM3 Rob Francis Rob Francis

You can see Caution Poet here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdJ-oXtPMRU

It was a great night! Only the 2nd event and Rob has built up a great crowd of supporters and artists at this event. What made the evening special was Stacey Pilcher the co-owner and creator of the bar, performed behind the mic.

P2S stacey smith Photography Peter Williams

Especially as up until then (not that I’d noticed), I was the only female performer!

Next month the featured artist/poet is Dave Reeves, poet in residence from The Black Country Museum and the compere for the evening in Leamington in 2013 when I took my first step back towards the mic, at Julie Boden’s spoken word event. In May, I will be the featured guest.

This event happens monthly and if you are local enough to give it a try, I would recommend it! Rob is a great host and the audience are receptive and warm.

P2S me

Beyond the event the venue itself is worth a visit, a refurbished site, once a McDonalds with a cafe downstairs and Scary Canary, an excellent venue for entertaining, live events. I love the overuse of lampshades, the homely settees, the leather suites, the coffee tables which were once doors, the MDF drinks mats and the original (maybe) tiled bar area. They also display artworks by local artists, there is always something new on display and it can all be bought!

I have borrowed a recent article to give you a taste.

Stourbridge Venue – Stourbridge News Photographs © James Butroid

Copyright 2015 James Butroid Stourbridge News

Copyright 2015 James Butroid Stourbridge News

November – Performances, Submissions & Mentoring

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This week has been busy week, one which finally had a writing day in it. I took on a lot of work this week and even took a last minute booking on the 1st writing day I had planned.

I am currently busy working on several things including my Hanbury Hall poems and writing material for an event at the end of the month as well as general submissions, I made 2 on my writing day (Fri) this included 4 new poems and 2 fairly new ones that I have been working on for a few weeks with the intention to submit.

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I performed a set for Mouth & Music on Tuesday night, the theme was ‘Remember’, I could have just read my recently published Paragram Poem ‘Picasso of Dance’, I intended to spend Tuesday writing to the theme – but I got called into work.

Instead I took both my poetry books to the venue and organised my set ad hoc. Amongst my set I performed an edited version of ‘Return to Stone’ previously performed at Roy McFarlane’s ‘Soulful Voices’. Roy had been booked to headline, unfortunately his mum passed away very recently. My thoughts go out to him and the family.

peter williams nov

We were treated to Fergus McGonigal and Humdrum Express (Ian Passey) as headline guests and the whole night was great fun, alive with atmosphere – which after the beginning of my working week I felt I very much needed and benefitted from.

Peter Nov Fergus  Peter Nov Ian Photography: Peter Williams © 2014

On Friday I had a writing day which was long overdue, I spent 4 hours working on poetry for submissions and caught up on admin for another hour, before taking a well earned and much needed rest. Fortunately I did wake up in time to get ready for Stanza!

cin It was Children In Need on Friday and I had the opportunity to perform in Wolverhampton, but had already committed to Stanza and the meeting was a lot closer to home. cin3

Stanza was a great night with lots of people, helpful editing advice and lovely nibbles. I love Stanza, it is such a friendly and helpful group. I am glad we have less than a month to wait before the next meeting – booked early because of Christmas!

On Saturday I worked as an Assistant Writer for our group at The Hive. I was performing in the Birmingham Literature Festival, I missed October’s group – it felt like I had been away for months. WWM

I also had the 1st of 3 Mentoring sessions, I was asked back in the Summer if I would consider being a Writing Mentor, of course I said YES! It was a great first session and I look forward to continuing this work in December & January.

Since then I have spent some time catching up with family, sleeping and avoiding buying bags!

Next week looks good, I didn’t have a particularly blank diary, but I realise I need to re-energise, I have officially only committed myself to a set in Cheltenham on Friday and apart from this think I may have a week off. I am working in the day job and need some energy to finish writing projects, plus it IS cold and rainy – staying in is always more appealing in this season of dark afternoons and pre-Christmas busy-ness!

deb alma xmas

Mouth & Music – War & Peace – 12th August

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MM aug Peter Williams

© Peter Williams 2014

 

Thank goodness for Classic Mode – it is unusual when tech is improved to leave an option to use the previous format, glad WordPress have – as I have a lot of blog posts to catch up on.

Let’s go back in time… before my birthday there were many events I didn’t blog about and since then I have been busy with events… I have taken the past 48 hours offline – it is a Bank Holiday weekend and we have had the allotment to sort out and friends visiting from London. I would recommend a offline break to anyone – I didn’t even use my mobile phone, the only tech ipods and TVs.

mm War & Peace – 12th August

Kidderminster have a brilliant Arts Festival kaf festthroughout the summer and this month’s Mouth and Music was a festival special. We were all expecting it to be a heavy evening – due to the theme – and the nature of the subject… it wasn’t – it was (as always) a brilliant night!

Jasmine Gardosi – a poet friend from Birmingham and runner up in the recent OXJAM Poetry Slam, is head lining there in a few months time and she came to M&M on the 12th, was great to have her company.

mouth and music

Matt Windle was the poetry headliner this month – love watching him perform – energy, talent and spirit. He is a boxer and is often billed as the Boxing Poet – I like the way he encourages others. Recently, at ‘A Night with Maya Angelou’ I saw Lauren Williams, a student at Birmingham Ormiston Academy & Birmingham Young Poet Laureate perform, having seen her get the acolade last year at the BLF (Birmingham Lit Fest) it was wonderful to see her perform. In conversation she told me that she was inspired by a poet who visited her school…. that poet? Matt Man Windle of course, who was himself a Young Poet Laureate a few years ago.

Matt doesn’t keep still during any performance and the lighting in the venue is a challenge for any photographer.

© Peter Williams 2014

© Peter Williams 2014

One of the reasons I like to blog about events in real time is because I still have the energy and enthusiasm for it in real time. Whereas at 9 (now 10) in the morning on Bank Holiday Monday trying to recall the night is somewhat harder.

I just remember uplifted feelings and some incredible poetry, music and dance. Sirkel – the music headliners brought DANCE to M&M for the first time.

SIRKEL
Scandinavian influenced folk duo – sax, flute, violin, accordion, guitar & mandola
plus guest appearance from clog dancer Ayliffe Edwards.

© Peter Williams 2014© Peter Williams 2014

© Peter Williams 2014

 

All photographs © Peter Williams 2014

The clog dancing was captivating!

© Peter Williams 2014

© Peter Williams 2014

Heather Wastie performing her War & Peace Poetry

© Peter Williams 2014

© Peter Williams 2014

Me performing mine.

A moving night and a fantastic audience of festival goers. A good time was had by all!

The most magical night.

Hosted this month by Sarah Tamar, congratulations on such a successful evening!